The annual general meeting of the Cayman Islands Institute of Professional Accountants highlighted its 2017 two-day conference, co-hosted with the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, as one of the organization’s key achievement last year.

Outgoing President Peter Small, who is succeeded by Joel Dodson, noted that the conference was attended by 200 delegates and 20 local and international speakers. He also pointed out that CIIPA’s training committee provided professional development to more than 1,100 industry professionals last year.

“This shows that we not only hold our members to the highest professional and ethical standards, but we also support personal and professional development,” Mr. Small said.

In 2017, CIIPA was named the supervisor for AML and CFT for the accounting profession, which Mr. Small called a positive step in protecting against money laundering and terrorist financing.

CEO Sheree Ebanks emphasized that in order to maintain Cayman’s reputation as a jurisdiction of choice for international investors, “an enormous effort has gone into the quality assurance regime, and we consider we had a successful first year of reviews under the new Accountants Law.”

Ms. Ebanks also announced CIIPA’s newest committee, Accountants in Business, which will have representatives from fund administration, trust and banking, independent directors, real estate and recruitment. “The goal is to encourage and facilitate best practices and the exchange of knowledge, as well as to be a resource for our members in industry on issues that affect them,” she said.

New president Joel Dodson said it is important that CIIPA has a voice in the global conversation around the profession and he encouraged members to submit feedback to consultations circulated by the CIIPA office. Mr. Dodson also confirmed the second annual AICPA CIIPA Summit will take place in December and announced the Careers and Mentoring Committee will be recruiting a new cohort of mentors to support accounting students at ICCI and UCCI.

In addition to voting in Mr. Dodson as president, the positions of vice president and secretary were filled by Chris Gauk and James George, respectively.